


Deceptive

by Rival_Distiller



Series: Unmasked [2]
Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Attempted Murder, Blood and Injury, Childhood Trauma, Childishness, Explicit Language, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Major Family Issues, Mostly a Human Au But Some Characters Are Still Animatronics, Murder, Near Death Experiences, Victim Blaming, pogs, some gore, takes place in the 90s, traumatic events
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28877700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rival_Distiller/pseuds/Rival_Distiller
Summary: Some people are best left dead. But they don't always stay that way, do they?
Series: Unmasked [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961389
Kudos: 5





	1. Deadly Creatures

"Hm… I think this one is the right shade."

"I'm pretty sure it's not. Do you not know what color the walls are?"

"Do _you_ not know what color the walls are? This is clearly the exact same color! The other one is way off. Way, way off!"

"You know what? You're completely right."

"Really?"

"Yes."

Foxy groaned, "I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not!"

Baby laughed. "Fox, both cans of paint are the same color. It won't matter which one we grab."

Currently, Foxy's place of work was closed, so he and Riley were finally going to take the opportunity to repaint a wall in one of the party rooms. It had been looking pretty bad for quite a while.

"What?!" Foxy brought both cans very close to his face, carefully scanning over the labels. "Crap, you're right."

He picked up a rather large paintbrush and pointed it at his boss, putting on a look of feigned irritation. "I can't believe you let me argue with you for like, five minutes when you _knew_ they were the same color."

A smile crossed the redhead's face. "Sorry, it was funny how worked up you were getting over it."

Foxy was a bit taken aback. "Wow, you're actually smiling." 

"Do I not usually smile?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Not really. At least not like that, you don't."

It was true. Despite being a clown, Riley hardly ever smiled. Her usual facial expression was one of disinterest. Or some slight variation of that. And on rare occasions where she did smile, the one she usually gave was a sort of lazy, playful, half-smile. But never a full smile.

It almost made her look like a different person entirely.

Foxy had never really noticed how round and cartoonish Riley’s eyes actually were since they were almost always half-lidded. They gave her a weird look of innocence and curiosity that didn't match her personality even slightly. The actual smile itself was stupidly symmetrical and perfect. It looked like something he would see on a doll. 

It was very strange.

"Are you okay? Are you sure you're not sick?” Foxy lowered his voice, “Or high?"

"Not since I last checked. Just in a good mood, I suppose."

"You're about to repaint a wall and you're in a good mood about it?"

Foxy received an eye roll in response. 

"No, Fox. I'm happy because I can be around you all without the feeling of constant paranoia looming over me. I'm happy I'm not… you know, dead and I actually made it back here in one piece. I am in no way excited to paint the wall. Actually, I'd like to get it over with as soon as possible. So let's get on with it, yeah?"

Riley started to leave the upstairs storage room, grabbing herself a brush and taking the paint can from Foxy so he didn't have to carry it. As per usual, she walked faster than necessary and he had to practically jog to keep up with her.

"I find it kind of difficult to imagine you being paranoid. Or scared, for that matter. Seeing visible fear on your face is like… Freddy not pouring milk straight into the box of Nightmare Puffs instead of using a bowl."

"Just because I don't display those emotions doesn't mean I don't feel them. It just means I'm good at masking them with disinterest."

"I wish I could do that. I've screamed so much in the past month that my throat is still sore."

Baby carelessly dropped the can of paint next to the wall that they needed to paint, popping the lid off with a flathead screwdriver. "That all better be a joke or you’re gonna be in trouble.”

Foxy jokingly raised his hands up in front of himself and backed away a little. "It was, I swear!"

"Good." The lid was discarded onto the tarp they had put down earlier. "Now let's paint this so we can get it over with."

"Yes, sir." Foxy saluted before nearly dropping his entire brush into the paint.

Sure, he may have attempted to make fun of Baby earlier for being excited to paint a wall, but he had to admit that he wasn't having the worst time. The task itself still wasn't exciting but he had missed things being the way they were before Afton had appeared. The atmosphere was genuinely pleasant. He wasn't afraid to enter the rooms by himself, and he wasn't seeing odd sides of his friends that he never knew existed. 

Well, actually, Foxy still felt like he was seeing sides of his friends he wasn't used to. Mostly just with Riley, though. Despite her seemingly unfriendly exterior, she was typically pretty enjoyable to be around. And now it seemed her usual front was slowly but surely fading away, allowing the nice qualities that strangers never really saw in her to better shine through.

"Are we done now?"

"No, we still have to do a second coat.”

"Can we do that now?"

"Uh, well, this is latex paint so it should take around… four hours to dry. I think."

Foxy groaned, "What are we gonna do for four hours?"

"I don't know." Baby shrugged. "I'm sure we'll find something."

As if on cue, someone began to sprint down the hallway leading to the party room they both stood in.

There was a flash of purplish-pink and white.

And then, as if capable of leaping inhumanly high, Freddy practically pounced onto Baby. He landed on her back and she barely managed to keep upright.

Freddy must've eaten his cereal out of an actual bowl in the morning because a look of surprise crossed Baby's face for about a solid three seconds.

"Baby! Th-there's an emergency!"

She didn’t respond until she managed to regain her composure. "What? What's wrong?"

"I desperately n-need to play Pogs but I can't g-get to them because they're out of m-m-my reach! And Bon-Bon r-refuses to play with me so I kinda need s-someone to do that."

Both Foxy and Baby let out sighs of relief.

"Fred, that is _not_ an emergency."

Nearly tearing up, Freddy shouted, "It is t-to me!" And since he was still clinging onto Riley, he shouted it right into her ear.

She made a face to indicate that this wasn’t very pleasant before looking to Foxy. "Okay, well, we'll help you get your Pogs, right?" 

"Yeah, of course."

With that, the three of them started heading towards the storage room in the basement. For once, Foxy wasn't terrified to go down there.

Freddy finally let go of Baby when they reached their destination.

"Okay, where are they?"

"Up th-there!" He pointed to a shoebox at the very top of a shelf near the door.

Baby, being ridiculously tall, easily reached up and grabbed it. "Here you go, Fred."

"Yay! Thank you!" Then, without warning, Freddy glanced at the floor and jumped onto Baby once more, climbing up her like she was a tree."There's another sp-sp-spider!"

"That wasn't a spider, that was a ball of fuzz," she told him, her voice muffled by his sweater.

"...Are y-you sure?"

Foxy crouched down to inspect whatever had been spotted on the floor. "Yep, that's fuzz."

"Oh… n-nevermind then!" Freddy let go of Baby and grabbed his Pogs, running out the door. "C'mon, g-guys!"

Baby sighed, shouting something about how he was going to hurt himself running up the stairs as she followed after him.

Normally, Foxy wouldn't have stayed behind, but something caught his eye. He glanced over his shoulder at the door before crouching back down near the ball of fuzz.

A little bit past it, partially hidden underneath an old desk, was something circular. He reached out and grabbed it.

It was a little disc about the size of a half-dollar coin.

Foxy was immediately struck with some sort of unpleasant feeling that he couldn't quite explain. He frowned.

The disc must have fallen out of that box Afton stole when he broke in for a second time. 

"Stupid thing." Foxy dropped the disc back onto the floor and stood up. "You helped nearly get me and all of my friends killed."

The disc obviously couldn't hear him because it was an inanimate object, but that was how he felt.

Without a second thought, Foxy crushed the disc beneath the heel of his boot and left the room to find where Freddy and Baby went.


	2. Band-Aids

Foxy and Riley ended up playing Pogs with Freddy for so long that by the time they were done, they could put that second coat of paint on the wall.

"I feel like no human has ever played Pogs for four consecutive hours before. Do you think we broke some kind of record?" Foxy asked as he tied his hair back again. 

"Probably," Baby replied.

"Should we try to get that in a record book?"

"Definitely not. I don't want that to be my only known achievement when I die."

"Understandable."

There were a few minutes of comfortable silence between them before Foxy remembered something.

"Oh yeah, by the way, when we were in the basement I found one of those disc-things that made those nasty robots we fought all distorted and fleshy-looking. I think Afton dropped it when he broke in. The second time, I mean."

"What did you do with it?" Riley didn't look at him when she asked.

"I busted it. But I was thinking that maybe we should go through the stuff down there to see if we have anything else of his. I was also thinking that we should probably fix that basement window sometime."

"I'll make a note about that window. We can go through that stuff tomorrow after we close."

Foxy looked at Riley in surprise. "You _don't_ want to do it today?"

"No, it's too late now. It can wait. I don't want anything of his in here, but with him gone it can't hurt us to have it for a little longer."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"You _do_ realize that it's only eleven, right? And that you regularly stay up until like, three in the morning?"

"I do realize that. But I feel like I still haven't caught up on the sleep I missed while I was gone."

"Ah, that makes sense." 

That seemed as if it should have been obvious. Riley had mentioned a few days ago that she had spent as little time sleeping as possible on her way back. Mostly because sleeping on the forest floor/the side of a back road probably didn't leave her feeling very safe. Of course she was more tired than usual.

They both drew back from the wall, making sure they hadn't missed a spot.

Foxy looked sideways at Riley, feeling the strong urge to say something even though he was almost sure of the response he'd get. "You know, you _could_ take a day off for once if you wanted. You're not required to work all day every day. Especially when you're more exhausted than usual and still recovering from injuries."

Baby spared him a glance before her gaze moved down to her hands. Her fingers and palms were covered in Band-Aids and her left wrist was in a homemade splint. And that was just her hands.

She shrugged him off. "I can still work just fine. I don't need time off."

Yep. That was the answer Foxy expected. He gave her an unamused look and she continued.

" _All_ of us have already had enough time off during our little escapade. We don't need more."

"I'm not sure if I'd count that as time off. It was ten times more stressful than this job."

The only response Foxy received from that was a look of unsurmountable stubbornness telling him he wouldn't win.

He didn't say anything else, silently accepting defeat.

But that was fine.

Things were fine.

And they were slowly getting better day by day.


	3. Cleaning Up and Clearing Out

"Where are you going?"

Riley threw a quick glance towards Ballora as she pulled the hood of her jacket over her head. "Out," she answered. 

Foxy looked up from the table he had been cleaning, giving the redhead a funny look. "But... we open soon."

"I know, but it's important. I have to go. I'll try to come back as soon as I can, though. In the meantime, Lor is in charge. Don't let anything catch on fire." Without another word, Riley went straight out the front door and vanished somewhere around back.

There was a moment of silence following the strange behavior.

"...That's funny. She's normally super specific about where she's going."

"Yes, that was rather odd. But after all that we’ve experienced recently, I don't think that's the strangest behavior we've seen,” Ballora said. 

"I guess you’re right." Foxy went back to cleaning the table.

It was around twelve in the afternoon when Baby finally returned, which was right about when they got kinda busy. Actually, they weren't just kinda busy. For the first time in a while, they were _swamped_.

She popped out of the entrance to the back rooms, pulling her mask down over her face. 

Bon-Bon decided to open his mouth once he spotted her. "Oh, hey. You've finally decided to come back from your little adventure or whatever. What took you so long, Clown? Cops get an anonymous tip about the body you keep in the trunk of your car?"

Foxy could only sort of make out the puppet’s high-pitched voice through the crowd of laughing, shrieking, and crying children.

Baby laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. You know I don't have a car."

Foxy was surprised for a moment but then realized that her response actually wasn’t too unexpected. Foxy had noticed the animosity between the two of them had fizzled significantly since everything had ended… Well, it had on Baby's side, anyway. Bon-Bon still enjoyed pushing buttons regardless of whose buttons they were. Foxy would know, he got made fun of in the morning for deciding to wear stripes. And for accidentally getting eyeliner over the bridge of his nose when Freddy scared him. And for nearly falling on his face when he entered the kitchen.

Foxy started wading his way through the small blockade of children between him and his boss. He could hear Bon-Bon make some remark about how she probably stole a car as he managed to break through the end of the barrier, stumbling a bit.

"Baby!"

"Fox."

Foxy was tempted to ask her where she had gone, but decided against it and stuck to asking what he had originally planned to. "Are we still doing that thing after work?"

"Yep," Riley replied, popping the 'p'. "We can do it right after we finish closing up if you want."

"Alright."

With that, Foxy went back to actually doing his job, a slight feeling of anxiousness for upcoming events washing over him. He couldn't quite tell whether it was more fueled by fear or some sort of eagerness. And the fact that work seemed to go by ten times slower after that conversation didn't seem to help very much. It was also unusual, considering the fact that everything around him continued to be complete chaos.

There was running on the tabletops, there was screaming (lots of it), things were being thrown, Ballora at one point got quite literally swept away by a swarm of children.

After the last customer had left, Freddy and Ballora disappeared off into their rooms while Foxy and Baby got ready to check out the basement.

They both pulled off the outermost layers of their work clothes and tossed their masks onto one of the recently cleaned tables before making their way to the basement.

"So," Foxy started as they made their way to the basement storage room, "out of curiosity, do you have any idea how those disc-things even got here in the first place? I didn't think you'd want to hold onto anything of his."

"Uh… well, Michael and I moved out of our mother's house around the same time. She wanted us to toss away some of his old junk that had gotten swept into our stuff in her haste to move out of town after everything. I mean, we were already packing and getting rid of stuff, so why not?"

They reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Some of the boxes probably got mixed up. I know I somehow ended up with a few of Michael’s things too. That's the only reason I could think of why that stuff might be here, anyway. Either that or it just materialized in here."

"Both of those theories sound pretty plausible to me." Foxy opened the storage room's door, flicking on the light switch. He looked towards his friend. "Okay, where do you think—" Then he cut himself off. "Wait a second, something's different about you."

Baby raised an eyebrow, seemingly genuinely unaware of where this was going. "Yeah?"

"Yeah..." Foxy stared at her for a minute, squinting.

And then it finally hit him.

"Oh, I know! You're not wearing your contacts."

The blue of Riley’s contacts was gone and instead replaced with her actual eye color -- green. Foxy probably hadn't noticed earlier because she had been wearing her mask.

"Ah. I must've forgotten to put them in."

"You look kinda weird without them. Not in a bad way. I mean like..." he paused, unable to find the right words, "I don’t know. I guess I’m just not used to it."

"That makes sense. You've only seen me without my contacts once," she said. "But back to what we were doing, where do you think we should start?"

"Uh… maybe around there?" He gestured to the general area that he had found the disc in.

"Alright."

The two of them did actually end up finding some more of Afton's junk after about eighteen minutes of searching.

The first thing was wrapped in a couple of dishtowels and a bit of duct tape. It ended up being a crude metal arm that was chopped off at the elbow. Well, maybe it was actually some sort of glove? It was almost completely hollowed out on the inside, and the forearm was comprised of two metal plates held together by leather straps that could probably be tightened. 

Foxy nearly cut his finger open when he accidentally poked one of the sharp talons at the ends of the fingers. "Okay, ow."

"You alright?"

"Yeah, I just didn't realize that the fingers on this thing were actually claws." 

He passed the arm to Riley, who carelessly tossed it into an empty box that was sitting on an unused desk. 

They found a handful of blue pins (they were each about the size of Foxy's index finger), a few more of those small discs that had fallen, and a couple of random circuit boards not long after.

Once they had swept through the entire storage space, they stopped. 

"I think that's all of it." Foxy felt about as dusty as everything in the room was.

Baby picked up the box. "I'm gonna go chuck this shit into the dumpster," she announced tonelessly.

The two of them then headed back up the rickety staircase and were about to part ways near the back door before Foxy stopped. "Oh hold on, Riley, do you have your keys?"

"I do." Riley made just about it halfway through the back door before she paused. "Wait."

Foxy paused too, turning back around to look at her. "Yeah?"

She directed her gaze at the forest lining the parking lot rather than at him. "Could I ask you to do something for me?"

"Of course," he responded.

"Could you please start calling me Elizabeth instead of Riley?"

Well, that was far off of whatever vague idea Foxy had about what she was going to ask.

"Sure," he said. "I'll call you whatever you want to be called. But… I thought you hated that name."

"I—" Baby cut herself off and shrugged. "Things change. And… I don't know, it doesn't really feel like it holds the same weight that it used to."

"Okay… Elizabeth." It felt weird to say, but Foxy was sure he would get used to it quickly.

He continued off down the hallway as Elizabeth went to throw Afton's things into the dumpster.


End file.
